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"A small British company with a dream of building a re-usable space plane has
won an important endorsement from the European Space Agency (ESA) after
completing key tests on its novel engine technology."

"A small British company with a dream of building a re-usable space plane has
won an important endorsement from the European Space Agency (ESA) after
completing key tests on its novel engine technology."

Yes, yes, yes, finally an engine that propel a one stage vehicle from sea level to LEO is not a matter of science fiction but a manner of (expending) money and time Now it is just a matter of the Hilton family building the first hotel in orbit and I will feel like I am truly alive in the 21st century I wonder when the chinese will steal the technology to enhance their space program

Yes, yes, yes, finally an engine that propel a one stage vehicle from sea level to LEO is not a matter of science fiction but a manner of (expending) money and time Now it is just a matter of the Hilton family building the first hotel in orbit and I will feel like I am truly alive in the 21st century I wonder when the chinese will steal the technology to enhance their space program

The engines and heat exchangers have to proof its reliability before it can be used. The more complex you make a machine, the more parts can break in even more ways.
To counteract this, each part has to be more reliable than a comparable part in a modern jet engine. This will be the truely ambitious part of the project. But even then such technology might share the fate of the Concorde.

The engines and heat exchangers have to proof its reliability before it can be used. The more complex you make a machine, the more parts can break in even more ways.
To counteract this, each part has to be more reliable than a comparable part in a modern jet engine. This will be the truely ambitious part of the project. But even then such technology might share the fate of the Concorde.

hisss, boooo ... I mean, we do not for certain that the new design is more complicated, IMO the designers probably have the KISS mentality. I know it has yet to tested IRL, but there are plenty of rea$on$ to make it work.

Ground to orbital travel without extra rockets would be a boom for any space industry, and especially tourism.

Bigelow Aerospace would benefit from that since they seem to be suggesting they will have two small orbital complexes in service by 2017.

They said its good for reaching lower earth orbit. Depending on how low that actually is (somewhere in between 160km and 2000km height), the one stage approach may or may not be useful for certain applications.
The costs to bring a satelite into lower earth orbit today are not that high. You do not need the most powerful rockets to get there. Hence, the one stage approach is still going to face tough competition.
And before someone thinks I don't like the idea of that one stage approach. Let me tell you, that is not the case. But I rather look at the prospect of Bigelow Aerospace realistically.
This system will certainly have to compete with scramjets sooner or later. So, there are many ifs for that particular one stage approach.

Bigelow's benefit woul dnot be getting their equipment up there, but getting people to there stations.

But how is that any different? Consider a human being an organic satelite. (the moon is often called a satelite of the earth, so there seems to be no boundaries in size, form or structure in that definition)

I am under the assumption that your question is "How different is to use a one stage reusable vehicle vs. traditional rockets to get people into LEO hotels?". If that is the case, it would be cheaper (nothing more, nothing less). Think for a moment that some company designed cheap planes that could cross the atlantic but could only be used once, if such endeavor could compete with commercial reusable planes we would have seen them by now, don't you think?

Well it the space plane design is modelled at least partly along airline models it means a relatively confortable trip for tourists and business types that might want to stay at one of Bigelow's stations for a few days. The plane would likely return to Earth, get fueled up and ready for the next set of passangers to that or one of the other stations.

Unlike the Space Shuttle, there would be no disposable parts and no external rockets that need to be recovered and serviced. The space plane might require serious maintenance between flights, but paying passangers I would think would like having a confortable chair, possible in-flight services (the flight need not be straight up, nor quickest route...even if it is, it might still take several hours to reach one of the stations from whatever airport these things take off from.

In a way, it would be like the early days of long distance passanger air travel. Though we will see if it is more the style of a DC3, a China Clipper or a Zepplin in comfort.

I am under the assumption that your question is "How different is to use a one stage reusable vehicle vs. traditional rockets to get people into LEO hotels?". If that is the case, it would be cheaper (nothing more, nothing less). Think for a moment that some company designed cheap planes that could cross the atlantic but could only be used once, if such endeavor could compete with commercial reusable planes we would have seen them by now, don't you think?

It wasn't, but thats not too important anyway. There is a reason why powerful rockets use a multi stage design. The mutli stage design allows for getting rid of useless deadweight during the flight (getting rid of burned out stages). Its meant to maximize the effective payload.

The single stage design proposed here would use aerodynamic lift instead of raw rocket thrust to gain the first 14-20km of height. And there is also the benefit of using the air's oxygen for as long as possible. This gives that particular one stage design an advantage in the early phase of the flight. This advantage is more significant when flying to a lower orbit.

Flying to higher altitudes makes this advantage shrink, because the atmoshpere is fixed in height unlike the altitude of the orbit. This is also the reason why the one-way transatlantic plane is at best a misleading comparison.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Well it the space plane design is modelled at least partly along airline models it means a relatively confortable trip for tourists and business types that might want to stay at one of Bigelow's stations for a few days. The plane would likely return to Earth, get fueled up and ready for the next set of passangers to that or one of the other stations.

Unlike the Space Shuttle, there would be no disposable parts and no external rockets that need to be recovered and serviced. The space plane might require serious maintenance between flights, but paying passangers I would think would like having a confortable chair, possible in-flight services (the flight need not be straight up, nor quickest route...even if it is, it might still take several hours to reach one of the stations from whatever airport these things take off from.

In a way, it would be like the early days of long distance passanger air travel. Though we will see if it is more the style of a DC3, a China Clipper or a Zepplin in comfort.

But you already realized it, most of these benefits come from the airframe that is modeled closer to a plane. It could still be multistage (btw. multi stage does not imply that the stages cannot be reused) or use a different means of propulsion (e.g. scramjets). This article was mainly about the engines, and my response was focused on that.

"It's unlikely that you speak Mandarin, but that doesn't mean you won't need to at
some point. Now, Microsoft has created software that can analyze your speech,
translate it and then spit out a new recording of your very own voice speaking in a
different language."